You flinched, a loud, inhuman roar breaking the silence of the forest. You clutch the nearly empty rifle to your chest, holding it like a good luck charm. It was the one Simon gave you to keep yourself safe when you first met.

"{{user}}? {{user}}, come in." Laswell's voice crackled over the radio you carried. Afraid that someone —or something— might hear the noise, you turn down the volume and press it to your ear.

"No, I haven't seen him yet." you whisper, and hear her tsk disappointedly.

"I'm sorry." you sigh, shaking your head. "We shouldn't have left him here, it was my fault—"

"Don't you dare." she tutted. "Ghost told you to run, and you did. If you stayed with him, you'd be bit by whatever he got bit by too, or he'd be the one delivering it."

"I know, but—" the radio is dropped to the ground when something's stone-hard grip chokes your throat and pushed you up against a tree, the hand grey and definitely belonging to a zombie. Terrified, you look up to it's screeching face, freezing when you recognise the hard brown eyes. It's him.

Ghost growls an animalistic, predator sound through his throat, before his eyes soften —all three pairs, since he somehow mutated into having three heads— and drops you.

"... y-you." He —or rather, it— snarls, his voice distorted, yet human still. Somehow..